A meeting of representatives of all five countries, to nominate dates and match venues for fixtures in group eight, has been arranged for Skopje, Macedonia, on February 19th and 20th.

The FAI had offered to host the meeting, but given the composition of the group, it was scarcely surprising the majority voted against coming to Dublin.

Under the rules, the various countries have 60 days in which to arrange their programmes, but Irish officials - and their opinion would appear to be shared by the remainder - consider it desirable that the process should be completed sooner, rather than later.

To that extent, it is likely that talks will take place within the next three weeks when negotiations, traditionally complex, will tax the skills of Bernard O'Byrne, the FAI's chief executive, and Mick McCarthy. The first set of games in the championship are set for next September, with the various groupings due to be completed by October 1999. The play-off ties to decide the four second-placed teams to join the best second-placed team (who qualify automatically) in the finals will be held the following month.

At this point, Mick McCarthy has only one reservation about the venues and dates: "I wouldn't want to be heading off to Yugoslavia, Croatia and Macedonia for our first three games," he said. "I'd like to have at least one home game and some points banked before we get to that stage in our programme."